No words for sex, even “sex”

Published December 22, 2012 by Patrick Dobson

Billie,Again, I bitch about the absolutely inadequate language with have for sex and sex organs.

Take “blowjob,” for instance. When I hear blow, I think of bailing out of the plane and blowing into the red hose to inflate my PFD. “Suck,” too. that slurpy, bubbly sound at at the end of a milkshake…pumping out the basement after a sewer backup…a collapsed drink box. “Eating,” like going to a deli and asking for certain cuts of meat on a sandwich. No thanks.

Then all we have are cold clinical/Latin language for what should be zesty, lively enterprises. Fellatio. Fellate. Cunnilingus. Cunnilate? Penis. Vagina. Coitus. Copulate. Coupling. Fornication. Pre-marital sex. Charnal knowledge. Fetish sex. Sexual intercourse. Orgasm. (Like phantasm, protoplasm, and blepharospasm, it’s kind of a scary word.) You might as well go lay down in the morgue or on the mortician’s slab for all the life these words have.

As a side note, I do like the German “bumsen.” Unlike our F-word, bumsen has a note of fun and whimsy to it, as well as the raw power and satisfaction one can get from good, vigorous bumsen. Plus, bumsen not sharp on the tongue or sour in the mouth, like “fuck,” “screw,” “bone,” “bugger,” “bump fuzzies,” “getting it on,” “doing it,” “spanky,” “swack,” “schtup,” “trim,” “tap,” and, literally, hundreds and hundreds of other dumbass words and phrases.

We also need better, more human and humane terms for positions. Most of our present terms are descriptive and do not intimate that anything happens on the inside of our human personalities and souls. Otherwise we are stuck with “missionary” (how much more Puritan can you get?), “doggie style,” “anal,” “countertop,” “scissors”… The list is really long and mostly depressing.

The rest of our language for sex stuff is pretty base. “Fuck,” “dork,” “Johnson” (a racial term relating to the Blackamerican prizefighter Jack Johnson), “dick,” “squiggy,” “boner,” “stiffy,” “bush,” “gentalia.” Of course, I feel more comfortable using the male terms. I find most of the female terms to be degrading rather than just stupid.

So, what’s the solution? I have ideas. You have ideas just from reading this note. Get to it, Billie. Of all the revolutions we need, the first ought to be of the most intimate and personal of all.